back to article Cyber attacks will 'catastrophically' spook public, warns GCHQ

A digital attack against the UK causing even minor damage would have a "catastrophic" effect on public confidence in the government, GCHQ has privately warned Whitehall. The Cheltenham spy agency's new Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) makes the prediction in a document prepared for Cabinet Office and seen by The …

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    1. Someone Else Silver badge
      Boffin

      Ahh, but then...

      There will be **other** future AI computers organized to auto-attack those auto-protected networks and firewalls....

      Can you say, Dr. Strangelove, 2030"? I knew you could...

  1. Mike Shepherd
    Happy

    Keep Calm and Carry On

    The Home Office has always oscillated between fear of the UK population (hence wartime dread that many were German spies) and a paternal view that they are helpless (as in Gotham City) without Batman or some other hero (perhaps in a pin-striped suit).

    Any of the ordinary populace who relied on government for survival would be long gone. So, a cyber-attack will terrify only civil servants. The rest of us will deal with it and continue (with a chuckle at useless government advice along the way).

    Where is Michael Winner when you need him? Send him to Whitehall. "Calm down, dear. They're not going to shorten your tea breaks".

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Hmmm

    "Any of the ordinary populace who relied on government for survival would be long gone. So, a cyber-attack will terrify only civil servants. The rest of us will deal with it and continue (with a chuckle at useless government advice along the way)."

    I would venture that it was actually a useful arrangement to have that nasty government to organize a navy and an air force between 1933 and 1945. Britons would have had a hard time to fight with pitchforks and knifes against the atavist hoardes of the MG-armed SchutzStaffel and GeheimeStaatspolizei, don't ya think ?

    Ah no, that was just the case for those frogeaters. Brave Englishmen would never have that let happened to them. Indeed.

    Skull, as the nice gentlemen of the SS had on their uniforms and caps.

    1. jake Silver badge

      @joeuro

      "Britons would have had a hard time to fight with pitchforks and knifes"

      Uh ... dude(ette?) ... The Brits had easy access to rifles, shotguns and pistols back then. Wouldn't have made a lot of difference in your obviously flawed scenario, but do try to base things on reality, mkay? Ta.

    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Flame

      You may have noticed that the world didn't start with Hitler

      >>I would venture that it was actually a useful arrangement to have that nasty government to organize a navy and an air force between 1933 and 1945

      1) Intervention in WWI with the justification of maintaining Belgium's neutrality and upholding some secret entente thing with France. Not understanding that this is not a fight against dark dudes in faraway colonies but somewhat more serious. Pauperizes and decimates country. Sets up a petard 0.

      2) Scapegoating of Germany in collusion with France. Sets up a petard 1. Also shows the US what "peace in Europe" actually means.

      3) Couldshouldering of Mussolini over Abessynia (which no-one cares about, least of all the UK), dropping a good ally against Hitler. Sets up petard 2.

      4) Naval treaty with Japan is left to expire in preference to naval treaty with USA. Sets up petard 3.

      5) Breastbeating about some part (which no-one cares about) of Poland (which no-one cares about) full of Germans that want to get back to Germany. Sets up petard 4.

      6) War declaration on Germany while no forces actually exist to do anything serious about it. Sets up petard 5.

      Prepare for hoisting, further pauperization and the sell-out of Eastern Europe to another dude from the mustache-bearing brotherhood (perversely admired by Churchill though: he wasn't speaking german)

      Yep, some good planning right there. At least Argentina could still be beaten after that though there was trouble with the Suez action.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Well? I'll be jiggered?

    Who'd a thunk it?

    Imagine that! The web is insecure and lets people (our people, their people and prospective enemy people (I use the term loosely but prospective out of favour people/nations might be a better descriptor yes?) see things that we are rather a bit miffed about.

    Besides, UK security wants to sell your information to the highest bidder rather than let any and all harvest your details willy-nilly.

    Yes! It is time for a bout of standards, nomenclature and agreements!

    We hereby agree that a nation's security force will have complete and total access to the computer based datamining at one's disposal. Should other nations wish any, part or all of that information then will they kindly pay us please? Pretty please?

    'Cos we in the UK is broke and indications suggest a change in central government that will make much many more peoples broke of greater magnitude and wider scope so we need to be sure yooz will payz wot we asks for. OK?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A Cyber-Attack

    It sounds so scary and terminator-esque! Oh no! What will we do!? The Internet might go down, and then crops will stop growing and the rivers will stop flowing. The machines will rise!

    Oh no! The humanity!

    It'll be like Y2K all over again - remember the sheer terror, the fear, the blood on the streets!

    Honestly - it's a bunch of fucking computers. Most of us would cope surprisingly well without them. You know, grow shit, make shit, sell shit, write shit down on paper.

    Bunch of fear mongering morons.

    You NEED US - no you REALLY DO!! WE PROTECT YOU FROM THE MONSTERS....

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      ALL THE MONSTERS BELONG TO THEM..... which is real crazy

      "Bunch of fear mongering morons.

      You NEED US - no you REALLY DO!! WE PROTECT YOU FROM THE MONSTERS...." ... Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 23rd February 2010 11:22 GMT

      AC,

      It is much a case of ...... You can take a spook to knowledge, but you can't make them think ..... and sometimes they can be denied heaps of information to help them grow into much SMARTer Beings ........ "Posted by: amanfromMars | 02/23/10 | 3:18 am | .... Your comment is awaiting moderation." ..... http://amanfrommars.baywords.com/2010/02/23/100223/

      I wonder if there are SMARTer Beings behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains exchanging Purple Prose that Captures Hearts and Minds and IntelAIgent Souls?

  5. Rob McDougall

    Wish they'd...

    tell this to Mandelson, before he cuts off half the population for downloads:

    "any interruption of broadband access becomes intolerable and will have serious impacts on the the economy and public well being"

  6. A J Stiles
    FAIL

    Quantum is Fail

    Quantum Key Distribution still requires a secure two-way backchannel to verify the key that was sent to you in an overly-complex way. It's also not necessarily secure against attacks from the middle, if the attacker can obtain access to the backchannel and the verification is done in real time. You might just as well use the backchannel for the key exchange in the first place.

    Quantum computing for decryption is the stuff of bad science-fiction. Even if it worked, any of the possible plaintexts "Attack the bridge at dawn", "Defend the fort at sunset" and "My daughter has the piles" could have resulted in the same ciphertext. There is no method that can distinguish reliably between them.

    1. Bumbling Fool

      Science fiction or science fact?

      Yes, it is true that a QKD system requires an authenticated channel to prevent against man-in-the-middle attacks. This is an unavoidable requirement for the initial set-up of such a channel. However, once the channel has been established the exchanged secrets can be used for subsequent authentication. Once a QKD system has been set up it pretty much runs itself automatically - which is an attractive feature in some cases. It also allows you to consider other key management possibilities in which the key refresh rate can be much higher than would be the case for security policies in which master keys are to be refreshed manually.

      There's far too much hype surrounding both QKD and quantum computing. They are just different technologies for achieving very specific things. They work - they have been built. QKD is commercially available. Quantum computers exist only as small-scale lab demonstrators.

      QKD is just an alternative method of exchanging, or rather establishing, keys. No more and no less. It offers some advantages over traditional methods, but it also has some weaknesses. It's just a different technology.

      The same is true of quantum computing. In security terms the relevant thing to note is that a quantum computer can perform factorisation (or solve discrete logs) much faster than their classical counterparts. So if the inability to factor or find discrete logs is something that your security relies upon then the ability to do these things very quickly undermines that security.

      The 'quantum' aspect is really irrelevant. If it helps just think of it as a new factoring algorithm that works in seconds rather than years. Such an algorithm running on a classical conventional computer would have exactly the same security implications.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    '"catastrophic" effect on public confidence in the government'

    I don't think we need the cyberattack to have zero confidence in this bunch of control freak chimps.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    "Observing the message destroys it"

    That'll be tricky to decrypt then!

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